Plan Your Trip Times Picks

Your Car's Here, On Track 2

By MIREYA NAVARRO

Published: August 29, 2004

SOMETHING must be said right away about riding the subway in Los Angeles: It may not take you where you want to go. In an area of such sprawl, its 73.1-mile route system seems meager -- you can forget Venice Beach or the Santa Monica Pier -- and regular commuters complain of faraway stations with inconvenient bus connections, not to mention frequent slowdowns.

But transit officials say more and more tourists are discovering the subway as it adds stations within walking distance of attractions like Universal Studios Hollywood and Old Pasadena. And for visitors on a budget, it is hard to beat a one-day pass that allows unlimited rides for $3 (single rides are $1.25).

Setting off on a recent weekend to see as much as possible only by subway (which in Los Angeles means three light-rail lines and one underground line), my expectations were low. All the people I knew were enamored of their cars. Yet as a newcomer to Los Angeles, I appreciated getting out of mine. Driving may be faster than the subway on some freeways, but certainly not during rush hour or the many times when traffic just mysteriously grinds to a halt.

Ed Scannell, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said the average speed on Los Angeles freeways was 37 miles an hour and dropping. The trains, he said, operated at 35 to 70 m.p.h., depending on the line and the stretch.

Metro Rail, as the system is called, runs three routes from downtown Los Angeles: northwest to the San Fernando Valley (Red Line), northeast to Pasadena (Gold Line) and south to Long Beach (Blue Line). A fourth line, the Green Line, goes from Norwalk to Redondo Beach and has free shuttle-bus connections to Los Angeles International Airport.

The $7 billion system combines features that may remind experienced riders of the subways in New York and Washington. The cars, which are air-conditioned, and the stations are bare of ads except for often corny ones touting the benefits of Metro Rail (''Go Metro to Flirt,'' reads one). As in New York, announcements can be inaudible or unintelligible. As in Washington, stations are clean and attractive. Many display whimsical public art like tile murals, light projections, mannequins suspended from ceilings and, at Chinatown station, a granite I Ching dial inlaid in the ground at the station's entrance.

I took off on my subway journey on a Saturday morning from the Marriott Los Angeles Downtown, chosen for my stay because of its central location. It is listed on the subway map under the Seventh Street/Metro Center station on the Red Line, but it is relatively close to two other stations, Pershing Square and Civic Center.

One shortcoming was immediately evident. The closest station, Seventh Street/Metro Center, was five blocks away. Under a pounding Southern California sun that makes pedestrians take shade under umbrellas, riders may turn lethargic and downright grumpy as they must walk similarly daunting treks to Metro Rail ''destinations'' like Little Tokyo, which is five or more blocks from the Civic Center station, and the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, nine blocks from the Memorial Park station.

I studied my street map and decided to start off at the Civic Center station at First and Hill Streets, the designated stop for Little Tokyo, as well as two new attractions, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Disney Hall, which offers self-guided audio tours but no access to the auditorium itself, was a short two and a half blocks from the station. Just strolling around the stainless-steel sails of Frank Gehry's striking design is worth the visit, and the hall has a cafe that sells anything from water and Champagne to salads and crab cakes, as well as a high-end restaurant, Patina.

Near the concert hall, and one block from the Civic Center station, another imposing structure, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, completed in 2002, welcomes visitors to a complex of church, chapels, mausoleum, restaurant and gift shop around a 2.2-acre plaza. One chapel is devoted to all victims of sexual abuse, apparently not enough to pacify the handful of protesters who picketed outside during my visit, alleging a church hierarchy ''cover up'' of sex crimes by priests.

Downstairs, a mausoleum brightly illuminated by stained-glass windows has thousands of crypts and niches for cremated and interred remains. Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916-June 12, 2003) is interred in one of the few burial places that have been filled.

As I stepped outside and stood by a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, I checked my map to figure out how to get to Little Tokyo. Past the restaurants and shops along First Street near San Pedro Street and an entrance to the Japanese Village Plaza, an outdoor mall, I found the Japanese American National Museum and two emotionally jarring shows. One was ''September 11: Bearing Witness to History,'' the Smithsonian's touring exhibition of photographs and objects connected to the attacks. The other was the museum's permanent collection of memorabilia, photographs and artifacts from the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, including a wall of suitcases representing lives packed up at a moment's notice.